Americas

2012

New York, December 18, 2012--Brazilian authorities must
immediately provide protection to journalist Mauri König, who went into hiding
on Monday after receiving death threats related to his reports on police
corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Syrian violence contributed to a sharp rise in
the number of journalists killed for their work in 2012, as did a series of
murders in Somalia. The dead include a record proportion of journalists who
worked online. A CPJ special report

Murder is the leading cause of work-related deaths among
journalists worldwide--and this year was no exception. But the death toll in
2012 continued a recent shift in the nature of journalist fatalities worldwide.
More journalists were killed in combat situations in 2012 than in any year since
1992, when CPJ began keeping detailed
records.

Almost half of the 67 journalists killed worldwide in 2012 were
targeted and murdered for their work, research
by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows. The vast majority covered
politics. Many also reported on war, human rights, and crime. In almost half of
these cases, political groups are the suspected source of fire. There has been
no justice in a single one of these deaths.

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There are many complex reasons why Brazil has become a
dangerous place to practice journalism. I will cite two possible explanations
for the increase in deaths of journalists in the country, where seven
journalists have been confirmed killed for the work over the past two years.
First, the press is producing more investigative reports on government and
police corruption, the misdeeds of politicians, organized crime, and human
rights violations. Journalists are killed in reprisal for this type of reporting.
The second explanation has to do with impunity. The lack of thorough
investigations for these crimes has created a feeling amongst the perpetrators
that they will not be identified or punished.

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Back in
November 2010, Britain's Channel 4 broadcast a leaked video that appears to show men
in Sri Lankan military uniforms executing bound prisoners, the camera panning
across a series of bodies laid out in a ditch. Family and friends identified
one of those bodies as that of Tamil Tiger TV newscaster
Shoba, also known as
Isaipriya. If authenticated, the video could constitute evidence that Isaipriya
was murdered. It would be one step toward accountability in a long string of
unsolved murders of journalists in Sri Lanka. It would also be evidence of war crimes that
are said to have been committed during the final phases of the 27-year civil
war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,
or LTTE. But disputes have
ensued between the United Nations, which claims the video is authentic, and the
Sri Lankan government, which claims that it is fake.

Worldwide tally reaches highest point since CPJ began
surveys in 1990. Governments use charges of terrorism, other anti-state offenses
to silence critical voices. Turkey is the world’s worst jailer. A CPJ special report

The imprisonment of journalists hit a record high in 2012, driven by the growing use of anti-terrorism charges to silence critical voices. This video, a centerpiece of CPJ's new Free the Press campaign, details the plight of imprisoned journalists worldwide and describes how international advocacy can make a difference in winning the freedom of jailed reporters, editors, photojournalists, and bloggers. (4:40)

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Cuba,
historically one of the world's worst jailers of journalists, has returned to
CPJ's prison census after a one-year absence. Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, a
reporter for the independent news agency Centro de Información Hablemos Press, was
imprisoned in September after he started looking into why an international shipment of medicine was allowed to go
bad, according to news reports.